“As I’ve become more aware of myself and my standpoint as a disabled person, I’ve become more aware of how many otherwise progressive causes ignore us. For example, in academia, critical theory often leaves out issues of disability from the triad of race, class, and gender, even though disability weaves its way through all of them. I was shocked when I realized that theories built on an awareness of the devaluation and stigmatization of bodily difference often ignore the category into which everyone might someday fit: disability. But perhaps that is exactly why disability is left out. Most people feel such fear and vulnerability about the possibility of becoming disabled that they simply want to push it out of their minds.
In the popular media, so-called “body positivity” campaigns leave out disability to a remarkable extent. The body about which we are supposed to feel positive is nearly always the able body. That body might be fat or thin, white or black, Hispanic or Asian, tall or short, rich or poor, but it is almost always able.”
[Cover Image: Photograph depicts model Jillian Mercado, she is a Latina woman who uses a wheelchair. She is against a brick wall. Her hair is in a blonde updo. She is wearing a black shirt with white letters and a black jacket. She also has on a sheer purple skirt and red flat shoes. Her hands are in her lap.]
PTSD sufferers don’t get to move on. This is how the disease works. Forgiveness, acceptance, inner peace–all of things are well and good, but at the end of the day, PTSD doesn’t care. You’re still going to jump when someone slams a door. You’re still gonna have nightmares. The trauma is not just a horrible event or experience. It’s a life sentence. It’s a burden that cannot be shed.
Holding the Bowl 